Why The Palm Beach Sto­ry is my favourite screw­ball comedy

‘They don’t make ​’em like that any­more!’ Such a procla­ma­tion might under­stand­ably arouse sus­pi­cion, con­jur­ing as it does the kind of misty-eyed nos­tal­gia that roman­ti­cis­es the past and dis­miss­es all things shiny and new. But in the case of screw­ball come­dies, when com­pared with con­tem­po­rary Hollywood’s cur­rent out­put, it’s an asser­tion that rings true.

From the 1930s through to the ear­ly ​’40s, Hol­ly­wood pro­duced a daz­zling num­ber of hilar­i­ous com­ic pic­tures loose­ly labelled as ​‘screw­ball’. Among the great­est film­mak­ers to emerge dur­ing this fruit­ful era was Pre­ston Sturges, an auteur oper­at­ing with­in the stu­dio sys­tem who first made his name as a screen­writer, and whose finest con­tri­bu­tion to the genre, The Palm Beach Sto­ry, turns 75 this month.

One way in which they don’t make them like this any­more is the film’s female lead, who is not only giv­en equal billing with her male co-stars but is per­mit­ted to be the fun­nier than both. Claudette Col­bert – a huge star who flour­ished in comedic roles – is Ger­ry, a prac­ti­cal-mind­ed wife who resolves that the only way to save her hus­band Tom’s (Joel McCrea) ail­ing finances is if she heads off to Palm Beach, Flori­da, in search of a mil­lion­aire to mar­ry, and use her new­found wealth to fund his busi­ness. Tom isn’t hap­py about the scheme, but as one of Sturges’ exas­per­at­ed yet impo­tent men (see also: Hen­ry Fon­da in The Lady Eve) he looks on help­less­ly and jeal­ous­ly as Ger­ry effort­less­ly woos the über-wealthy John D Hack­en­sack­er III (Rudy Vallee).

So often in con­tem­po­rary Hol­ly­wood com­e­dy the gen­der roles are sep­a­rat­ed, but the ver­bal spar­ring between Col­bert and McCrea is a dis­tant reminder of the joys of watch­ing two roman­tic leads engaged in a rapid-fire bat­tle of the sex­es, espe­cial­ly when it favours breath­less, anar­chic humour over the flat­ter sen­ti­men­tal­ism of mod­ern rom-coms. Watch­ing Col­bert mat­ter-of-fact­ly – almost apolo­get­i­cal­ly – use her charm to run rings around McCrea and the oth­er men in the film makes for fan­tas­ti­cal­ly fun view­ing, and it’s espe­cial­ly sat­is­fy­ing to see her trans­gres­sions go unpunished.

Like any good screw­ball com­e­dy, The Palm Beach Sto­ry fea­tures a gid­dy mix of slap­stick prat­falls, such as char­ac­ters falling down stairs and hav­ing their trousers fall down, and smart one-lin­ers deliv­er­ing wry social com­men­tary. Sturges was adamant that the way to con­nect with audi­ences dur­ing the hard times of the Great Depres­sion and World War Two was through lighter come­dies rather than heavy dra­mas (an argu­ment he weaved into the sto­ry of his pre­vi­ous film, the sim­i­lar­ly bril­liant Sullivan’s Trav­els), and he used that mode of com­e­dy to smug­gle in bit­ing satire.

The rich, for instance, are shown con­tin­u­ing to indulge in their flam­boy­ant lifestyle while the rest of the nation toils, but are satirised as being laugh­ably pre­pos­ter­ous. In The Palm Beach Sto­ry, a rau­cous band of mil­lion­aires known as the Ale and Quail hunt­ing club are so blind­ly unaware of the dis­tress their drunk­en antics of singing and even shoot­ing caus­es the oth­er pas­sen­gers (includ­ing Ger­ry) of a train jour­ney as to be ren­dered absurd, their reck­less enti­tle­ment too ridicu­lous to be tak­en seri­ous­ly, with the best option instead to laugh at them.

Anoth­er mil­lion­aire (known as the Wee­nie King, one of an array of amus­ing eccen­tric minor char­ac­ters) is for­ev­er mis­un­der­stand­ing every­one else, and warns against con­sum­ing the very sausage-based prod­uct that made his for­tune on the grounds of good health. And Tom’s plan to get rich again by invent­ing an enor­mous air­port sus­pend­ed over a city, for which Ger­ry is seek­ing the fund­ing for, is self-evi­dent­ly ludicrous.

This blend of unpre­ten­tious bel­ly-laughs and smart social satire is rare enough, but what sets The Palm Beach Sto­ry apart as not only the kind of film they don’t make any­more, but pos­si­bly nev­er will again, is its aston­ish­ing fram­ing device. As the open­ing cred­its play out, we wit­ness a baf­fling scene as Col­bert appears to play two char­ac­ters simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, one tied-up inside a clos­et, and the oth­er rush­ing to a wed­ding with McCrea, cul­mi­nat­ing in a series of title cards that tease: ​“And they lived hap­pi­ly ever after… or did they?”

The bizarre sequence is only explained moments from the film’s end – and cer­tain­ly won’t be spoiled here – but it is an out­ra­geous, sub­ver­sive par­o­dy of the stu­dio-enforced neces­si­ty for a neat hap­py end­ing, that exem­pli­fies the wild imag­i­na­tion that made Sturges such a peer­less com­ic filmmaker.